Black British Literature
Through an exploration of social, political and historical contexts, this course examines how diasporic writers decolonised genres and mapped their own metaphors onto the literary landscape.
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- Start Date: 09 Oct 2025End Date: 13 Nov 2025Thu (Evening): 18:00 - 20:00OnlineLocation: OnlineDuration: 6 sessions (over 6 weeks)Course Code: HLT372Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00
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What is the course about?
This six week online literature course studies the evolution and diversity of Black British literature whilst engaging in critical discussions of identity, race, history and culture.
The course centralises significant writers at the margins of a dominant discourse introducing students to formative fiction and non-fiction texts, key historical events and critical terms.
Course image credit: Acthom123 via Wikimedia Commons
What will we cover?
Week 1: An Introduction to Black British Literature: Imagining Borderlands
This session explores the complexities and problems of centralising writers at the margins of a dominant discourse and provides a brief historicising of black British writing.
Week 2: Britain’s Earliest Black Writers: Narratives of Resistance
Focusing on themes of slavery, abolition and resistance, this session examines the life writing of memoirists Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho.
Week 3: Narrating Black London: Colonization in Reverse
This session examines the representation of black London in the novels of Zadie Smith and Sam Selvon.
Week 4: Caribbean Literature and its Diasporas: Life Between Two Islands
Exploring Caribbean literary devices such as oral-storytelling and polyvocality, this lesson highlights community, migration, displacement and fragmentation within the works of Andrea Levy and George Lamming.
Week 5: Women’s Voices: Gender and Intersectionality
An exploration of key concepts informing the works of black female writers. With particular reference to Grace Nichols and Bernadine Evaristo, we will discuss Eurocentric beauty standards, motherhood, the black body and female sexuality.
Week 6: Contemporary Black British Writing: Poetics and Experimentalism
This session explores emerging poets’ use of experimental forms. Through the writings of Caleb Femi, Lemn Sissay and Linton Kwesi Johnson, we deep-dive into spoken word, performance and dub-poetry and analyse how the genre can be used to communicate social injustices and interweave personal and collective narratives.
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
- understand key critical terms such as postcolonialism, identity, migration and themes of memory and oral storytelling
- understand the workings of a myriad of genres including poetry, the novel and life writing
- contextualise black British experience within historical and cultural frameworks such as Windrush, abolition and slavery
- understand relevant literary techniques, devices and terms, such as symbolism, form, plot, rhythm, polyphony, musicality, language and voice
- understand and compare the writings of significant writers.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
This course is open to all, from beginners to those with some literary study experience. A passion for reading and discussing literature is helpful.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
These online sessions will be run in a seminar style and all students will be invited to take part in discussions led by the tutor. You could ideally read both novels before the course and be ready to discuss them but this is not essential because you will provided with specific sections which we will be focussing on during each session.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
Each week we will be looking at extracts from each text which will be provided via digital handouts by the tutor.
If you are interested in reading some or all of the entire texts (this is not mandatory) please see below:
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, (2003, Penguin)
Ignatius Sancho, Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, (2015, Broadview Press)
Andrea Levy, Small Island, (2004, Headline Review) Penguin Modern Classics)
Zadie Smith, White Teeth, (2000, Hamish Hamilton)
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners, (2006, Penguin Books)
Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, (2019, Hamish Hamilton)
Grace Nichols, I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, (1983, Karnak House)
Grace Nichols,The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, (1984, Virago)
Caleb Femi, Poor, (2020, Penguin)
Lemn Sissay, My Name Is Why, (2019, Canongate Books)
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mi Revalueshanary Fren (2002, Penguin)
Supplementary materials will also be provided during each session as a digital handout.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
Look for other Literature courses at www.citylit.ac.uk/history, culture and writing/literature.